CarlislePaWx

Good morning all. It certainly has been interesting reading everyone's posts. I woke up this morning to the temperature at 32.0 with the freezing rain having just ended. Everything is coated in a layer of ice that appears to be roughly 0.1" thick...certainly enough to be visible but not heavy enough to weigh down most branches. As I speak the slow melting has begun as the temperature has risen to 33.3 degrees. The ground and especially mulch is very white while sidewalks and street have all melted. Here are the stats for this storm: Sleet since midnight = 0.1" ; melted freezing rain = 0.43" ; sleet yesterday = 0.3", melted sleet = 0.09" ; freezing rain yesterday = 0.02" ; total sleet for event = 0.4" ; total freezing rain = 0.45" ; total melted precipitation for the storm = 0.54" So, ultimately the short range models with their total qpf had the best forecast. Both NAMs and the HRRR showed between 0.5" to 0.6" of liquid. The GFS overdid the precip with approximately 1.10" forecast before the storm began. Yesterday saw every form of winter precipitation possible. It snowed on and off for a few hours mid-day but did not accumulate, so a trace of snow recorded. And then last evening saw rain (at the very beginning), sleet, and freezing rain. One last tidbit of weather info from yesterday...temperature-wise the high was 34.0 and the low was 29.7 for a diurnal range of just 4.3 degrees. About a week ago I recorded the largest diurnal for this season with a 42 degree spread. Now it's back to dry weather for the next week unless something pops up out of nowhere like it's done before this winter.

Boy, is it sleeting 100% out there and everything is turning white. Officially I measured 0.3" on the board at midnight. Melted down, the sleet plus the freezing rain mainly at the beginning added up to 0.11". Temp down to 29.8. It's been quite a while since I've seen heavy sleet...I'm guessing at least 5 years or more. Glad to hear nearly everyone is sleeting...just like MAG thought it would be doing. And perhaps another few hours of good sleet before losing it?

Remember...those amounts are accumulated freezing rain and not ice accretion on objects. Although I could certainly believe between 0.1 to 0.2 of ice accretion from that much liquid.

Ok. Now that precip is falling moderately the sleet has picked up quite nicely. I'd say it's roughly 80 / 20 IP/ZR. My board has a sleet accumulation on it which I would call 0.1" oficially. Temp 30.6.

Started here about 15 minutes ago as light rain / zr. I can now hear some pinging going on outside so I at least have a mixture. Temp has dropped to 30.7. The dew point is rising but the temp is not yet dropping further. DP 27. Wet bulb now 29.3. If the precip can pick up in intensity I'm certain I can get down to at least 30.0, maybe even 29.5. I'll go out again and look at my board since it's now 11:00 anyway.

I forgot to give my conditions... Currently 31.6 degrees and hasn't budged for more than an hour. Dew point is 22 degrees and the wet bulb has decreased slightly from earlier to 28.4. That at least helps increase the chances that temps will cool off a bit more once good precip is underway. Latest radar shows serious juice about to enter southwest PA. Definitely will be interesting to see how much sleet we all might get and how quickly it changes to zr.

haha...you read my mind. I think at times we all take turns hating on CTP for the timeliness of their advisories/watches. I know they have to follow certain guidelines dictated by the regional headquarters for their CWA. If I remember correctly, in order for them to issue a watch in any particular county they have to have >70% certainty that at least 50% of the county warned will reach warning criteria. Obviously it is much less strict with advisories. I also know that if they believe a watch will be necessary, they can't issue it until the start time is closer than 36 hours away. For this particular event, like MAG has said many times before, even if just a tiny bit of ice could affect roads and/or sidewalks, an advisory seems warranted to at least alert for the potential for the ice. That isn't crying wolf, and I don't think the public would mind if the advisory was lifted closer to the event.

Well it once again looks like it's all collapsing right before game time. WWA now reduced to up to 1" of sleet and .1" - .2" of freezing rain. NWS must have looked at the 18z HRRR which basically showed almost no sleet, with most of the precip freezing rain up until dawn and then rising above 32 with plain rain for a few hours at the end, which is around 10:00 - 11:00am. My high today was 34.0 which occurred at midnight. My low was 29.1. My intra-day high was 32.7. I'm back to 32.2 and holding steady. Dew point is 23 and more importantly, the wet bulb has risen to 29.3...a sign that the cooling effects of the first hour or two of steady precip will only be enough to drop back to between 29 and 30 degrees. I guess we just look forward to the dry, sunny weather all of next week with temps gradually warming back up to 50 by Wednesday.

Well the 2 NAMs are definitely drier compared to the GFS by 50%! Total QPF GFS around 1.10" with total on both NAMs between 0.5" to 0.6". 12K freezing rain (for MDT area) 0.2" with 0.15" ice accretion 3K freezing rain only 0.08" with 0.07" ice accretion. Extrapolating it looks like there are several hours of sleet between when it starts (which isn't until 10:00pm on both) and 1:00am. Then changeover to light freezing rain on and off until 7am. Then approximately 0.05" - 0.10" of plain rain at the end which is by 10:00am. Now, which ones do we believe are most likely to play out the way they currently show? BTW, I'm still 30.7 but the period of super-light snow increased the dew point up to 22. Wet bulb now 27.5 so the cooling potential remains in tact (for now).

No precip/snow here yet. Temp holding steady at 30.7 degrees. However, the dew point is 18 degrees and more importantly, the wet bulb is 27 degrees. Those numbers easily imply cooling by 2-3 degrees once serious precip arrives. Regardless of what happens aloft, I know my temp is going to struggle to reach 32.0 before 7am tomorrow morning. With almost the entire event taking place during the night, the maximum potential of freezing rain, should that be the predominant ptype, will be realized. NWS has most of us in the WWA getting up to 3" of snow/sleet and up to a 0.25' of ice. The sleet will be the main story during the first half of the storm. The second half could be the freezing rain. I'm not talking about the daytime stuff, which was never supposed to be more than a trace. The action doesn't start until after 7pm. >>update...the first flakes are just now beginning to fall here...so slowly I can practically count them (lol)

That is a fair move south with the accumulating snow line. MDT went from 0.7 to 1.2" of snow. That's more than a 50% increase between runs! (lol). Hey even I'm now not far from 1" versus less than 0.5" earlier. What I don't understand is how multiple models are practically screaming severe ice storm, and have repeatedly shown even 1" of rain that falls with temps below freezing. It really would be nice to have them explain why the models they created and programmed are putting out data that they seem to blatantly ignore. I'm not saying I want this type of ice storm. I'll take as much sleet as I can get. I'd be willing to bet almost anything that the LSV will wake up tomorrow morning to at least a WWA. We'll see...

Winds have really picked up here as well. Temp still very unseasonably warm at the current 64.2 degrees after a morning high of 66.6 degrees about an hour ago. That temperature map of PA looks pretty incredible! Oh, by the way...total rainfall yesterday was a whopping 0.07".

My temperature has dropped 8 degrees in the past 90 minutes from what was the high of the day at 62.1 now down to 54.1. Wonder what's with that?

The pendulum once again has reversed and is heading back away from majority ZR to majority sleet. Still have another 36 hours to push the snow line further towards our region. While heavy sleet is horrific for the roads, it can't hurt the trees and shrubs. Between the two I'd much prefer IP over ZR.

Not if the NAM is correct.

Boy, the 12 nam is certainly interesting for the upcoming winter event. Breaking it down, the precip starts as primarily sleet around 0Z. It sleets for 3-4 hours until around 4z, accumulating roughly 0.7". It then changes to freezing rain with only light amounts of around 0.1" (not accrual) between 4z and 13z. It then changes to rain for the remainder of the event, which is only another 3-4 hours, with less than 0.1". Total qpf for the event is about 0.4" of liquid. Temp remains between 32-33 until the event ends by 16z. Then the temp goes up to the upper 30's for the afternoon before crashing back down below freezing by around 23z. The only interesting (frozen) part of the storm will be the sleet for several hours Thursday evening (imo). This breakdown is for the area roughly between me and MDT.

It's pretty wild watching the pendulum swing back and forth with the Thu/Fri storm p-types. The 6z run took away a lot of the snow with me getting around 2" total. The sleet shot up dramatically with my area almost the bullseye for sleet accumulations of around 2". Freezing rain is not so bad with around 0.15". So, on to 12z we go. Still around 16 more runs before the start of the event...lol. My low this morning was 12.0 exactly. @Voyager...I can tell you that there is nothing wrong with your new station's anemometer. It is your location / exposure hampering the good gusts. I don't have good exposure at my new home unfortunately also. My peak wind yesterday was 29mph. I know it was considerably higher than that. As is always the problem with most weather stations where all the sensors are together, most people will mount the station closer to the ground than the rooftop because of accuracy of the temperature. For me, personally, the accuracy of my temperature readings outweighs my wind accuracy and I accept that. My sensor is at 2 meters which is NWS protocol. Wind measurements are taken at 10 meters. The only person I've ever known who had a 10 meter tower for the anemometer is @Cashtown_Coop.

Euro doesn't like what the GFS says. I can't see surface temps but the low ends up in northwest PA Friday morning at 12z. 850's around +4. Much rainier picture. Plenty of time for adjustments.

Skies rapidly clearing with sunshine. Temp dropped to 29.6 before leveling off. Now back up to 32.4. Dusting already disappearing. Fun while it lasted. NWS said the squall was flying along at 55mph.

@Blizzard of 93...Boy, what a change for the better on the GFS 12z. No freezing rain. Very little sleet, and now 10" snow for me. Will the pendulum swing back the other way now?

In the squall. Temp just dropped from 37 to 30 in less than 10 minutes. Howling winds but the snow definitely wasn't blinding. I have a dusting, and skies are quickly brightening to my north.

Winds are slowly picking up now maybe around 10 mph with gusts to 20, as the temperature has warmed from around 54 degrees 2 hours ago to the current 60.4. So far I've recorded 0.49" of rain. Looking at the radar there appears to be a mini squall line mostly oriented N-S between PIT and JST. Perhaps it will hold together to give one last burst of rain. Once again we have a sub-1000mb low as I am currently down to 997mb. I'm guessing there is still more dropping to come before fropa in about 4 hours.

Woke up this morning to a nice little coating on everything including the street. Measured 0.3". Temp got down to 14.0. Right now it's back up to a "balmy" 21.9. The great thing was my front yard, which faces south and fairly quickly melted yesterday, was recoated again. I have no doubt it will be gone by later this afternoon. On the other hand my backyard didn't lose much yesterday and has about a solid 1" remaining. >>>Forgot to mention the dew point was down to 8, which bodes well for low temps tonight perhaps touching the single digits.

I melted down my 1.0" of snow and measured 0.08". That produces an SLR of 12:1. Even though the temp has remained below freezing so far (it's 31.3 now), the snow cover is slowly receding with more blades of grass becoming visible. Still solid cover though.

Good morning guys. I missed all of the "fun" between 3 and 5am. Looks like @Cashtown_Coopand I were the low-ball sites. I recorded 1.0", and just like that everything is white again (except conveniently, sidewalks and street). It might last a little bit until Tuesday. Hopefully the arctic front will do its magic later this evening and send snowsqualls my way. If I get in on one, it will be the first one of the season for me. Temp dropped overnight to better than I thought with 27.7. It was 36.0 at midnight, so a pretty decent drop from the snowfall. Temp now very slowly rising, back up to 29.5. Maybe we hold below 32 this afternoon?